


End of an Adventure

by orphan_account



Category: Digimon Adventure tri.
Genre: Afterlife, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Loss, Moving On, Reader's Choice - Freeform, Self-Indulgent, They deserved better, can be shipfic or genfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 03:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14782859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The end of a long and difficult journey.





	End of an Adventure

**Author's Note:**

> There are dub names in this because I love the dub. There are non-dub things in this because I love that Daigo calls her Hime-chan.

* * *

 

 

It’s quiet after the explosion.

Quiet, like a Sunday morning, when the air is just cool enough, the bed sheets just warm enough. A hazy feeling, like nothing can go wrong, like no cloud will darken the sky.

Daigo keeps his eyes shut and breathes, weightless in this place beyond the worlds he’s always known. His last words are a whisper in the back of his mind, tugging his mouth into a faint, sincere smile. It’s okay; it’ll be okay. The children will be okay.

Not like he and his group were all those years ago. The memories rush in, disturbing his hard-won peace. The sweet morning sunlight dims, the air turns cold, and his thoughts are drowned out in the quiet, shuddering sobs that wake him like a sudden thunderclap.

His eyes shoot open. The darkness is almost absolute, and the damp air weighs heavy on him. It’s familiar, this sadness. It pierces his heart and steals his breath, and it hurts even more because it isn’t crushing him like it is to its source.

“Hime.”

She is a moving shadow in the sea of darkness, a small thing, curled up and shivering with every breath. She’s out of reach—always just out of reach, no matter how closely he follows—

_“Hime-chan.”_

The darkness may be heavy, but he swims through it, kicking hard, cupping his hands with every stroke like a kid making waves to splash their friends with. It drains him, like the atmosphere wants to drown him, to kill him over and over for the sin of caring. Compassion, however, can’t be stopped, not now, after all these years, after the adventure and the heartbreak, the truth and the secrets.

He swims through it, and reaches for the woman who lost her world when she was just a child.

His fingertips brush against her shoulder, barely grazing the fabric of her suit jacket. She doesn’t so much as take a breath in response, lost in her grief like so many times before.

And like those many times, he doesn’t give up.

_“Hime-chan!”_

The air goes silent, and she stills. She’s listening.

“Hime-chan. The children— they’re going to fix things. They’ll find a way.”

“So what?”

Despair ripples through the atmosphere, one violent wave that shoves him back a ways from her.

“So, Homeostasis won’t win again.”

_“So what!”_

Another wave hits him, this one hot and angry. When it passes, the chill in the murky air is more frigid.

“Nothing’s going to change,” she says, voice sharp. “They’re still its pawns. We’re _all_ its pawns.”

He shakes his head. “They’re going to prove they won’t play its game.”

“It still doesn’t matter.”

She straightens slowly, like her limbs have gone stiff from being curled tight for so long. How long has it been? Since he’d felt that sorrow seize him when a battle had been raging overhead?

“I’m still alone,” she says, and now her voice shakes. “I’m always going to be alone.”

“No, you’re not.”

She laughs, a brief, harsh, unkind sound. “Really? Do you see Tapirmon here?”

“No—”

“I _failed_. And I’m all alone.”

“You’re not!” Daigo clenches his fists, watching her. She doesn’t make to look at him, but she is still and silent. He has her full attention. “You’re not alone. You’ve never been alone. You always had our friends. You’ve always had _me_.”

“You’re not my partner.”

“I lost my partner, too, that day!”

Now it’s him the ripple issues from, a pulse that shakes the shadows all around them, an inky sea they can breathe in. Do the dead even need to breathe? It doesn’t matter much, does it? What matters is that he can affect this place as much as she can, and that she’s turned her head towards him to hear what he has to say.

“Bearmon didn’t die, but he may as well have. I’ll never see him again. _None_ of us will _ever_ see our Digimon again. And you’re right. Nothing Tai and the others do will change that. But it doesn’t _have_ to. It _shouldn’t_. What’s done is done. Our time on the board is over. The game’s not ours to try and win anymore. We lost, I know we did, and you lost so much more than any of us.

“But you’re not alone, Hime. I’ve always been here at your side. So please, don’t push me away anymore. It’s over for us, but it doesn’t have to be the same. You don’t have to spend eternity feeling like this.”

Sighing, he releases the tension in his frame. His arms hang loose at his sides, and he bows his head, not in defeat, but in exhaustion. He’s been fighting this battle since they were kids, and it’s only gotten harder over the years. He should’ve fought harder, should’ve saved her, could possibly have stopped all this from getting as bad as it did; but now that they can’t walk in either world, his choice is to do what he can where he can. His choice is to keep fighting to reach Maki. His choice is to dream big and believe that he’ll finally succeed.

“Let me in, Hime-chan. Let me be there for you. Let’s be there for each other.”

The ripple that disturbs the air now is sharp and sad, yes, but warm—a teardrop, felt rather than seen. She sniffles, and when he looks up, he finds her facing him, shoulders shaking, hair throwing shadows on her face. 

“Don’t you leave me, too,” she says, shoulders shaking. “Tapirmon forgot me, so don’t you run away from me because you don’t—”

“Never.”

This time, it’s easy to swim through the shadows, and when he reaches for her, she moves towards him. There’s no resistance keeping them apart, nothing to slow him as he pulls her into a hug, nothing to stop her sliding her arms around him and holding on tight. He shuts his eyes as they settle together, and the darkness clears.

It’s that quiet Sunday morning light again, cool and warm all at once. Nothing will go wrong, and no cloud will darken their sky.

Their adventure is over; it’s finally time to rest.


End file.
